The BlackBerry Z10 is a revamped design for the company formally known as RIM, and debuts the BlackBerry 10 operating system. Announced in late January, the much-anticipated smartphone finally arrived in the tech crazy United States in mid March of this year. Online retailer Amazon retails the handset for $99 on contract, and BlackBerry calls their 4G LTE enabled Z10 “the fastest, most advanced BlackBerry smartphone yet.” Gone is the iconic and ever present physical QWERTY keyboard from previous BlackBerries, replaced with a large high-resolution touch screen.
Previous BlackBerry models had a small display accompanying the physical keyboard, and the new handset delivers a large 4.2 inch LCD display with 768 x 1,280 pixel resolution. Built into the back of the handset is a soft touch material which minimizes drops, and the high-resolution screen offers a high-end pixel density at 356 pixels per inch. You can navigate the handset with standard capacitive, multitouch gestures, and the slim 0.35 inch (9.0 mm) profile accompanies a weight of 4.85 ounces (138 g) to make for a slim and light 4G smartphone.
Standard light and proximity sensors are on board and help squeeze every hour of the handset’s 1,800 mA battery, delivering up to 10.0 hours of talk time from a full battery charge. In standby mode the BlackBerry Z10 can also provide 13.0 days of juice, and more than 16 million colors can be found on the handset’s display. The system chip anchoring the hardware package is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8960 model, built around a dual core 1.5 GHz Krait central processor.
Handling graphics processing is an Adreno 225 GPU, and the BlackBerry Z10 offers a substantial amount of RAM memory at 2.0 GB. The 16 GB of built-in internal storage is accentuated by microSD, microSDHC and microSDXC support for memory cards up to 64 GB in size. The handset offers Near Field Communications (NFC) support out-of-the-box, and delivers video out options.
The camera combo that the BlackBerry Z10 delivers includes both a front facing 2.0 megapixel chat cam and rear mounted 8.0 megapixel camcorder. That rear facing shooter has an f/2.2 lens aperture, and also offers a built-in LED flash and digital image stabilization. Automatic focusing while video recording is present, and the handset also offers manual touch to focus operation. Video capture runs 1,920 x 1,080 pixels (1,080P HD resolution), and the front facing chat cam can also be used to place and receive video calls.
April 21, 2013 at 11:11 am
In order for BlackBerry to succed, Verizon sales staff need to be properly trained and market the phone. I have been to several Verizon stores. The response goes like this. Hi, I would like to look at BB Z10. Sales associate points to phone on wall. No attempts are made to familarize you with phone features or benefits. Can you tell me about this phone? Sales associate, I don’t know much about it. BB is so far behind Android and Iphones. May I show you one of those? Absolutely, disgusting. I am a loyal BB user nd I am disappointed in Verizon’s terrible support and marketing of this remarkably quality phone.
April 22, 2013 at 5:17 am
Verizon’s Customer Service has been going “Down Hill” for the past 2-3 years. As a result, I will likely change carriers. The only thing going for Verizon is the expansive 4G network. Beyond the network, their store employees are poorly trained and not customer focused. Sad, as they were once a company I would choose to do business with. Verizon has also began a “Fee Crazy” campaign with additional upgrade fees for “god only knows what”. Very Unhappy…